So, I think I may have a grand solution to this problem and this also extends to similar forums. There's an app called "Friendly Social Browser" and its purpose is to give you one optimized "app" where you can add your sites and social sites you want to keep easily accessible and be able to navigate them conveniently and have everything in one place so you can easily "channel-surf" while maintaining overall context.

It also improves the rendering and allows you to tweak things to your liking. I would suggest it if you can get used to it since it feels a bit more stable than a random unoptimized browser, but its still true to the actual design of Tildes' web format and doesn't really depart from it in any appreciable way other than augmenting its stabillity.

Obviously there's Three Cheers and Surfboard (which is beautiful) but Friendly is a surprisingly pleasant and effective lateral answer to this question and I would encourage folks struggling with this topic to investigate it further and give it a try if possible.

I already play piano and guitar to some degree but never got to learn what I really wanted to play which was blues music.

I see ads here and there about “learn to play following this app!” and was wondering if people had any experiences or recommendations for app-based learning?

Seen a post or two about ios apps being developed. However, as far as android goes, I haven't seen any apps being developed yet for tildes. Which is definitely contributing to my lack of visits here and making it seem more like a chore. Am I just missing some options? 🤞 Or is the user base for Android just that low these days? 😢 Please someone tell me it's the prior😅

I got a tablet a few years ago, and I've struggled to use it as anything other than a big phone. Sure, it's really nice watching videos on the larger screen, and messaging is nicer too.

Do you guys have any recommendations for apps that are either tablet only, or have a much better experience on a tablet? I have a Galaxy Tab S6 Lite running Android version 13.

On a semi-related note, I am looking for good emulators for android(NES, SNES, Genesis).

Specifically this week I have to choose whether to create an account with paypal, cashapp or venmo but I am also interested in a broader discussion including other apps. Any advice or information would be welcome.

Seeking recommendations for Ethical Non-Monogamy (ENM) apps for a bi gal like myself for cute dates with other women only?

So far most of what I've tried have been very limited/one way interactions (unsure if people have forgotten how to ask questions!?). ONLY SEEKING FOR SELF, NO UNICORNS/NOT A UNICORN. Sorry just had to make that clear....

Any recommendations would be appreciated! PS am Au based not USA...

Happy Friday everyone! I'm making a post to see if anyone wants to beta test my Tildes.net iOS app Backtick.

Background

I've been wanting to create a Reddit app for quite a while, and just when I got started, the API change chaos happened. Thankfully, I remembered signing up for Tildes.net a few years ago and decided to pivot to make an app for this site instead! The app is still a work in progress, but I believe releasing early and getting as many eyes on it during development results in a better end product (and it's more fun for me 😊).

Features

Here are the current features of Backtick:

• Light mode/dark mode
• Login to Tildes.net (suports 2FA)
• Front page feed with sorting support
• View, vote, and comment on posts
• Reply and vote on comments
• Collapse comments
• View notifications
• Full markdown rendering
• Text-to-speech for posts and comments

Here is a video demo of the app in its current state (updated for v1.8.1): https://youtube.com/shorts/iukQJyJbtw8?feature=share

I know there missing features, but as I mentioned before, I would love to get as many people in as early as possible to help shape Backtick's future.

Testing

If you're interested in testing the app as I continue to work on it during my free time you will need:

• An iOS 16 device
• TestFlight (Apple's testing app)

You can access the beta here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/gNH18NE9. If you have any issues please DM me your Apple ID email and I will send you an invite manually.

Thanks, everyone! Have a great weekend.
- Ash

Edit:
Getting some great feedback! I'll be tracking bugs and potential features here if anyone is curious: https://chatter-brick-3d3.notion.site/Backtick-Tracker-888150b641ae4c0ab39dc0345783bc50?pvs=4

Edit2:
I created the Discord server to help facilitate better collaboration with those who wish to be more involved. It will be a place for discussion around potential features, bugs, and general chat. I will still be taking in feedback via TestFlight and Tildes.net, so it's perfectly fine if you don't want to join.
Join here: https://discord.gg/aah7nkfpBY

I use Slack, WhatsApp, Discord and Facebook's Messenger. On my computers, rather than installing dedicated apps, I've always just used these services' browser versions. It allows me to block ads with my browser's ad blocker and modify the UIs with other extensions that I use.

But in terms of privacy — and more specifically, in terms of what the service has access to outside of their own walled gardens — is there a difference between using these services through a browser or their dedicated apps? I use both Windows and Mac computers, if that makes a difference. My browser of choice is Firefox and I run the services in their own containers.

On my phone, I just use the provided apps and get notifications that way. I am well aware that most of these protocols are not great for privacy to begin with, but I'm not currently looking for other messaging systems.

As an amateur photographer, I'm looking for recommendations to improve my process for reviewing and selecting the best photos from my albums.

Currently, it goes something like this:

• (after I copy the photos to my PC) I open the folder containing the album
• I open the first photo and start looking at the pictures using the default photo viewing app
• I note mentally, on paper, or in a digital notepad the names of the files that I like the most
• manually select the files that I noted down

My ideal workflow would be something like:

• open the folder, open first photo, look through them all
• each time I see a picture that I like, hit space or some other simple shortcut, which adds the picture to the current selection
• after I am done viewing, I have all the files that I want already selected to do with as I please

I have tried multiple apps over the years but I haven't come across anything that had something similar, or I was too stupid to figure out how to do it. The workflow I described is using windows/linux, on macOS it's even more cumbersome (since one needs to select all photos in a folder before previewing them).

Do you have any recommendations for an app that has functionality like this, or if not, on how I can make my workflow better?

Thanks

I'm looking for input from the Tildes community about experiences with Android parental controls apps. My daughter is 8, but she rides the bus, so we want to make sure she has ways to contact us if something happens.

Other than that use case, I intend to limit her to offline content (audiobooks and music loaded directly on the phone) and some games.

The platform for this is an older phone (Android 9). I'm not averse to buying a newer phone if that makes the solutions workable, but I wanted to start with the "free" option.

I've installed Google Family Link on the phone. It does a nice job of restricting access to apps, setting time limits on individual apps, and filtering some content. The major limitation seems to be there's no way to restrict what numbers the phone can text or call with.

Bark seems to be the most visible alternative, and adds a lot of features for content monitoring social media, which is not really our use case. The main thing I'm looking for is an app that would let me administer the calling and texting features of the phone. I'm not opposed to paying for a service if that's what's needed.

Anybody have insights into tools? There's a ton of noise in the search results. Other solutions to the problem?

I'm looking for suggestions for a free, customizable minimalist launcher for my android smart phone. I am currently using indistractable, and while I like how it looks and the core functions, I don't like that I can't redirect certain apps, and it seems to have problems syncing my calendar. Ultimately, I'm not opposed to buying the premium version of this, but from my understanding that wouldn't provide the functionality I am looking for.

I did a little bit of researching and right now I'm looking at Lawnchair 2, Takan, and Olauncher as alluring alternatives. Does anyone have any experience with these, or any other recommendations? Primarily something that is entirely free, but if there is something that has a one time payment that really knocked your socks off I'd be open to that as well.

Hey Tildes,

I am wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a way to transcribe voice memos on iOS/macOS.

I want to take up a weekly/daily/whatever journal, however, I felt it may be good for me to use the voice memos feature on my iPhone as I go on longer daily walks and I always have my phone on me. However, going back to look at old voice memos can be rather time consuming rather than just reading/skimming through a text version.

The app can be paid or free. I am hoping to be able to export into multiple file types as well that I could open on any device I really want.

I tried out Sync for Lemmy. Loved it, but I was not a fan of the tracking for ads and the price to get rid of that being $20. Anyone tried the free open source Lemmy apps? I used to use RedReader for Reddit, so I don't mind it being a bit worse than something like Sync.

Hey Reddit enthusiasts! Revanced has recently extended its support to some of the most popular Reddit apps out there. The list of supported apps now includes Boost, Infinity, rif is fun, Relay, and Sync.

For those who are new to Revanced, this means you can patch these existing apps with your own oauth-client-id, allowing you to continue enjoying them seamlessly.

Quick tutorial:

1. Go to https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps in your web browser.
2. Create a new app by giving it a name of your choice.
3. Tick the "Installed App" option and fill in the redirect URI field. The specific URI depends on the app you're using. For example, for rif, the URI would be redditisfun://auth. You can find the required redirect URI in the app's corresponding section on GitHub.
4. Copy the client ID string that appears for the app you just created.
5. Create a text document named "reddit_client_id_revanced.txt" and place it in the root directory of your phone's storage (e.g., /storage/emulated/0/<file here>). Paste the client ID into this document.
6. Install the latest version of ReVanced Manager on your device.
7. Open the Patcher tab in ReVanced Manager and select your app.
8. In the Patches section, enable the "Change OAuth Client ID" patch.
9. Apply the patch and install the modified app (Note: If you already have the app installed, you may need to delete it first and then click Install once ReVanced finishes creating the new APK.)

Following these steps will help you navigate through the process of obtaining a private client ID and applying the necessary patches to enjoy Reddit using ReVanced.

Guides with screenshots:

1. https://gist.github.com/decipher3114/4423a2671dc3ce4401025b737d5c89f4

2. https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1wHvqQwCYdJrQg4BKlGIVDLksPN0KpOnJWniT6PbZSrI (Thanks to @kobew50 on Discord)

If you encounter any difficulties during the process,head over to ReVanced Discord server to seek assistance.

Reddit applications that have available patches or modified versions.

➡️ Platform: Android 🤖

➡️ Platform: iOS 🍎

*Shout-out to WefWef - a Lemmy client not only inspired by Apollo, but which is aiming for feature parity. (GitHub)

Hey Tildes, with the renewed interest in the site, it got me thinking that we should hold a fundraiser for the not-for-profit company—which currently consists of just one person—that runs Tildes. It's overdue.

Disclaimer: These are my words as a member of the community. I haven't run this message by the admin before posting. I may have gotten some details wrong.

Where to donate

• GitHub Sponsors: https://github.com/sponsors/Deimos
• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tildes

History

A bit of history: The site admin, @Deimos ran the first three years of the site working full-time on it, paid only by donations, plus a $5000 GitHub sponsor match one year, which I'm not even sure was fully achieved, or only just barely.

For that time period 2018-2020, a lowball salary as a software engineer with his experience would have been $100,000 USD per year not including benefits.

If he received $5000 in donations per year (almost certainly an overestimate for more recent years) plus the $5000 GitHub match for the first year—for the 5 years of Tildes' life, that's about $30,000.

The remaining opportunity cost of $270,000 was essentially paid out of pocket by himself, as a donation to the community. Plus remember there are server expenses, legal incorporation expenses, etc. And, y'know, rent.

In recent years he had to take a full-time job because the situation was, of course, unsustainable.

App?

I announced in April that a mobile app is under development. Originally, I was planning to take my time and release a first alpha by the end of 2023.

How about if we struck a deal: get the donation numbers up and I will devote more time to the app, as opposed to splitting my time between it and contract work and other projects.

What's the deal?

• 150 active donors combined on GitHub Sponsors and Patreon—I'll release an alpha by November.
  GOAL REACHED
• 300 active donors—I'll release an alpha by October.
  GOAL REACHED
• 500 active donors—I'll release an alpha by September.

The dollar amounts don't matter.

As of writing, we are at 46 active donors.

What's in it for you, though?

Feeling like I did a good deed, I guess? I'm not looking for a "slice of the pie," to be clear. In some sense I'd be matching your donations with my time, aka opportunity cost.

If I donate, can I bother the admin to work more on the site?

No.

Again, I haven't run this fundraiser by the admin. He will certainly keep his full-time employment for the foreseeable future, and will not magically have more hours in the day to devote to Tildes.

With a sustainable budget, though, a lot can happen in the future. Contracting out work to others, for example.

But the point of this fundraiser is more to make a small dent in the past debt we owe the admin, not making any promises whatsoever on the future of the site and how it's run.

Let's go, my fellow Tilderinos!

• GitHub Sponsors: https://github.com/sponsors/Deimos
• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tildes

I appreciate Goodreads for its pretty extensive catalogue of books, the ability to see reviews from other readers, and the social aspect of following what my friends are reading. However, I find both the website and the app very slow and not very well designed. Plus, I liked to minimize my interactions with Amazon. Has anyone used or built any alternatives? While the features I listed above are nice, the only ones I would really want are:

• The ability to quickly look up and add a book to my "want to read", and to keep track of books I have read
• The ability to leave notes or reviews on books (not necessarily visible to others).

I've started to keep a reading log in Notion which satisfies the second point above, but there's no easy way to search through a data base of books and add a book to one of my lists. It would be nice to be able to do so on the fly as I browse books at the store. So Tildeños, what solutions have you all come up with to track your reading?